Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967). Siegfried Loraine Sassoon, CBE, MC (Military Cross) was an English poet, writer, and soldier. Receiving the MC for bravery on the Western Front (First World War), he has become recognised as one of the leading poets of the First World War.

Poem:

He turned to me with his kind, sleepy gaze
And fresh face slowly brightening to the grin
That sets my memory back to summer days,
With twenty runs to make, and last man in.
He told me he’d been having a bloody time
In trenches, crouching for the crumps to burst,
While squeaking rats scampered across the slime
And the grey palsied weather did its worst.

But as he stamped and shivered in the rain,
My stale philosophies had served him well;
Dreaming about his girl had sent his brain
Blanker than ever—she’d no place in Hell....
‘Good God!’ he laughed, and slowly filled his pipe,
Wondering ‘why he always talked such tripe’.